An Ancient Sport

One man discovered fragmented references to an obscure, and apparently ancient sport, which so intrigued him that he undertook to recreate the sport for himself. 

From the piecemeal information in hand, he believed he had a reasonably clear picture of the goal, and a sufficient conception of the basic playing techniques, to at least get started. 

For many seasons, he toiled to perfect his playing of the sport, with an ever-increasing collateral desire to actually experience a scoring of the goal… 
But without success.
 
 

In one universe, there exists a certain elective exertion
whose singular reward IS the exertion. 

(A curious rumor persists which claims that few of those who take up this exertion ever realize the payoff—and this refers to both definitions of the word, "realize.”  They both never "understand" what the effort actually was, nor do they "obtain-the-profit" from same.) 

J.

Specialized Mechanics

While homo sapiens are organized to find great satisfaction in the pleasures-of-the-flesh, (sex, food, movement  and relaxation), they experience their non-physical life as endless episodes of irritation. 

The majority of humans do not find these non-physical irritations worthy of attention, much beyond momentary moaning thereabout. 

A large part of being an ordinary, properly-life-serving human being is to, in-your-thoughts,  disagree with the thoughts expressed by other human beings, and to object to their failure to think correctly.

Such are the specialized mechanics that make the unique domain of Man go ‘round.

J.

Get Your Float!

Men who are frightened by thoughts are not on a first name basis therewith.

If you wanna be serious –
nobody’s gonna stop you.

If you’re ever gonna see how dumb it is –
no one is ever gonna help you.

 
It’s in the herd’s best interest for individual cows to remain calm.

“You want to go back to the room for awhile?” 
 
“Oh, that’s right we don’t HAVE a room, thank god!”

 

“Okay, get your float and let’s hit those waves!”

“What, you didn’t bring your float? Well, just use the fatty build-up around your thoughts.”

“Last one in is a you-know-what, (or in your case, a you-know-why.)”

J.

The Purpose of Problems

What you now don’t have to say is of a higher order than before.

The ultimate prize in the struggle for enlightenment is a bag to hold all of the prizes you have collected along the way:

      (a)  I want to see the end of the road.
(b)  I want to know where this road came from.
(c)  I want to know what is responsible for (a) & (b).

All human problems have a common purpose:  to keep you indoors.

As he would write his fanciful, metaphysical tales, one man would sometimes look at his thoughts, and other times, at his hand writing the tales. (One of the two is better for waking up.)

The reward for the Enlightened when they die is to go to a place where they no longer dream.
(tis’ also so as they live).

J.

Ordinary Silence

Thought is good for two things:  
Making up stuff, and
trying to debunk the stuff that’s been made up.

You’re on the right track when you have more plans than life has objections to.

Without something to look for,
a man won’t look.

It’s not a matter of overcoming life, but of outwitting its local branch. 
(P.S., You ARE its local branch.)

Ordinary silence is the same as ordinary talk:  What is needed is a new form of radical shutting up.

J.

The People Downstairs

If you think that the mechanism in you that is responsible for thinking is, (as it says), running your life – you are what is known as, “Coasting downhill with a cracked fuel tank.”

As they stood amidst the ever shifting sights and sounds, a boy asked his father, “Just who is in charge of this circus?” 
“Certainly not the one who thinks he is,” the ole man answered; (a reply which for many years the lad did not recognize as being a full explanation of what it IS).

No matter where you live, the people downstairs either seem to have more fun, do more to have fun, or else are the source of all your problems.  It appears difficult to have any effect on the situation, since they were already living there when you moved in.  There is a funny thing though: everything you hear from “up here” is a distorted version of the original sounds from downstairs.

Fact:
Everyone is a cannibal and a plagiarist.  The difference is that a man who has cleaned out his apartment doesn’t eat meat or take credit.

One Man’s motto is: 
“Live and learn from the second-by-second lessons – then lynch ‘em and forget ‘em!”

And someone writes:
“How can you say what you did recently, when to awaken requires a bad, a REALLY bad memory?!  Everything I have ever studied about this matter says that just the opposite is necessary? Explain what you meant.”  (I’m sorry sir, but I don’t eat meat while working.)

J.

What Do I Have To Know?

A son asked his father: "What do I have to know how to do besides play flatted thirds and sevenths to be a rock guitarist?"
"Nothing." he replied. 

Later the lad asked his father: "What do I have to know how to do besides be critical to be a man-of-god?"
"Nothing." he replied. 

The boy still later asked his father: "What do I have to know how to do besides make dire predictions to be a politician?"
"Nothing." he replied. 

And after that the son asked his father: "What do I have to know how to do besides whine to be a poet?"
"Nothing." he replied.

Finally, the lad came to his father and asked: "So what do I have to know how to do besides ‘nothing’ that I do not already know how to do to be able to do anything in particular in the non-physical world?"
And the elder just smiled and shrugged. 

J.

Rat Trap

Once everyone looked straight ahead. 
Then everyone began to look around. 
Most people are satisfied with how things are now…
a few aren’t. 
 

There were once creatures who lived in a slit. 
They evolved to living in a box. 
A few of them realized that they were still living
in a confined space…
but it didn’t seem to bother anyone who didn’t notice.

Only instinct can put you in tight spots…no, maybe that should read: 
Only things non-instinctive can get you into tight spots…. 
hmm, still doesn’t sound right…okay, let’s try this: 
Only a super smart person, struggling-to-see-straight  recognizes the implications of constructing
a rat trap that looks like a cat. 
 

One man was qualified to teach algebra. 
He found himself in front of people who identified themselves as students of arithmetic. 
So he determined to confine his comments accordingly…but found himself unable to keep from telling them about algebra any way.

Anyone taller than you is "TALL,"
but no one dumber than you is dumber than you are.

J.

Adam: A Myth Retold

In the beginning, Adam was alone, and in physical paradise. (His brain was not yet producing conscious thought.) 

Then one day an apparently supernatural voice called out: "Hey, you." (Consciousness was starting to get cranked up, and one of its features began to speak.)

Several more times the unknown voice called out: "Hey, you." Until eventually he responded: "Who – me?" (Now consciousness had a second feature that could hear the first one talk.)

As soon as Adam finally responded to the voice it immediately asked him a semi-accusatory question about himself. (The talking feature of consciousness was checking to see if the proper balance between it and the listening one had been established yet, and it required the question being presented several more times to Adam before he finally responded, proving that everything was now in place -- 

-- at which time Adam was unceremoniously tossed out of the quiet, peaceful, garden-of-physical-paradise, and into the cacophonous, busy world of consciousness. 

Moral: Only those who simply insist on a condo in Babel Towers answer questions about themselves.

J.

Real Magic

Deficiency in part
is deficiency in the whole.

Ordinary men go from path-to-path and system-to-system; like travelers from one hostile city to another.  It is a trek from one so-called authority to another, but it is not real effort.

Men who do not hear the voice of their god within wait in vain to hear it from without.

This can never be defined for it is the struggle to discover the undefinable itself.

Those who follow the strong part of themselves will become strong.
Those who follow the weak part will become weak.
Those who heed the ignorant part of themselves remain ignorant,
while those who hear the truth become freed.

Real magic does not simply lay about to be discovered by dreamers; it must be consciously produced by those with Will and Aim.

J.

Reflections

The acquired personality of man is like ice floating in the water of essence.  As a man makes effort, his personality begins to melt.  The water does not increase; the ice-of-personality is simply absorbed back into its original liquid state.

The body and the emotions were not intended to fall under the current influence of the mind. The aim is to neither live solely in the mind, the body or the emotions, but to live in peace and safety.

A man may read and write religious tomes and discuss philosophical questions until ducks learn to tap dance, but such will never lead to escape.

There is a calm and safe center at the escape point, existing even in the eye of frantic and dangerous conditions.  The location of this point is known only to those who understand the union of attention and consciousness.

Mystical poverty is not in being empty-handed, but empty hearted: free of mechanical desires.

Why cannot men see that all is reflection?  They must use a mirror to even see their own face…and that, too, is but a reflection.

J.

Man is Subject

Man is a subject,
and
Man is subject.

There are two possible methods of real change:

First, become subject to something outside of your own personal system.
Secondly, by your own understanding.

The Struggle is good, but only for those who do not know about Escape.

By and large, words control, color and limit what an ordinary man believes he has seen and experienced.

Real “I” does not exist except when the union of attention and consciousness is produced.  It is always but a potential, subject to the remembered and realized willful effort.

J.

Faith

This can never be mechanical therapy.

There is negative magic in words, and that is in accepting them as a permanent statement of reality.

Real effort is to create a cure from illness,
discovery from confusion,
and will from captivity.

Men use faith, even while denying it.

Man is born and bred as a functioning part of a certain mechanical system.  He must further produce himself so as to live in alignment with greater, unrecognized systems.

J.

Ideas Are Ammunition

When hope is lost,
fear departs.

When dreams are no more,
nightmares cease.

Without hope, there is no fear.

Ideas are ammunition, the mind the weapon.

If sparrows long follow vultures, they too will acquire a taste for rotted meat.

The external progress of man has not resulted in a fundamental change.  In life, sometimes a man is on the mountain, sometimes the mountain on the man.

J.

The Imaginary Friend

One boy had an imaginary friend—who stayed with him 'til the end.
Some friend!

One boy had an imaginary friend—who surprised him by ceasing to be so imaginary.
Some surprise!

One boy had an imaginary friend—who began to tell him that he was him.
NOW we 're getting somewhere!

One man had an imaginary friend— who, after telling him that he was him,
then told him that he could learn to separate himself from him.
Hey—things are really getting interesting NOW!

One man 's imaginary self began to slowly feel the silent presence of the real force driving this whole shebang,
and then asked that I not say anything else about him and what he was doing.

J

Religion Revisited

Realize your own susceptibility to suggestion and personality’s desire to find an imaginary source of strength and knowledge for it to worship.  Only one who has escaped the prison of sleep is capable of true worship, or of even understanding what is to be worshiped.

A man who may spend hours a day on his knees in a temple, or singing in the streets, cannot be known by such external deeds as to be engaged in worship.  People will do such things while drunk or drugged, or under great fear and stress, or simply because it was suggested to them by one whose personality captured their own.

The more you make effort and the less you value sleep, the more you begin to experience a real feeling of awe.  The wish to worship moves further from imagination, and closer to understanding.

Each man’s personality, if it were able, would turn every real system into a human cult.  Look at what they did with Buddha and Jesus.  This is ordinary, this is weakness, this is ignorance, and this is not real.

J.

Ducks in a Row

By now a serious man or woman knows within themselves personality’s continuing inclination to be led and influenced by the external forces.  This is the nature of ordinary life, the way it must be and the way it is. 

The ordinary state of sleeping consciousness could just as well be called as the State of Suggestion.

Each person’s mental-personality is a brilliantly constructed reactionary apparatus to receive and digest suggestions. 

Public commentators express amazement at occurrences of large groups of people apparently following the directions of a madman.  This is not amazing, if anything, it is amazing it does not reach people’s attention more often. 

If ducks are following the normal suggestions that shape and govern the world of ordinary duckdom, then everything seems ship-shape and there is nothing to be noticed. 

As long as humans are moving along as the prevailing suggestions dictate for that locale, then everything seems normal.  No one notices or knows of any alternative.

J.

Why Can't One Be One?

No matter how conscientious you may believe your efforts to have been, no matter how much more aware you think you are now, the days have yet, yet, yet to come where there are no surprises left. 

The area these comments address is a most difficult one to grasp and confront.

People ordinarily need the companionship of other people.  Among other aspects and a particular necessity for a sane Work group, this companionship can be used as a more stable ground for self-study, and learning about the unknown areas of oneself.

Watch this situation and consider:

Why cannot one be like one,
even when one is with another one?

Could it be that if one were really one, one would always be one…no matter if one were    alone…or amongst a thousand?

J.

Two Are Not One

Two people, no matter how close, are not the same as one.  This is very tricky and subtle.  There is no cause for dismay, but just another normally unrecognized facet of human life that has great impact on our internal and external existence. 

Note what specific ways you change when brought into contact with another.  Note along what lines your mind was wandering while alone, then specifically in what ways this changed when another person joined you.  Note what seemed to be your emotional condition alone, then how your feelings shift, with the appearance of a companion.

At times, also note a definite change in your body’s condition, a tensing perhaps, when your solitude was broken by the arrival of another.  You may also easily note changes in observable behavior. 

Perhaps while alone you were singing and grinning, and when the other person entered the room, you without any conscious decision, immediately stopped smiling.  Note it, observe it, and consider and Remember it.  It is a new crack into which you may peek. 

Once you clearly see this regarding your own condition and behavior, then consider the self-directed inquiry:  “Why?”  “Why is this so?”

J.

The External Audience

There is a subtle situation that affects all efforts in This: that is, two people are not the same as one.  A person cannot ordinarily act before even an audience of one, as he can alone.

The recognition of this mortal situation is part of the historic basis of men abandoning human companionship, while involved in a non-life aim. 

You can observe the reality of the situation within yourself.  It is there, in continual operation, to be seen by the keen of eye.  You may find yourself, for whatever reason, in a particular internal condition.  This condition can be drastically altered, if not lost, when suddenly you are no longer alone, but in the company of someone quite close and dear to you.  The condition becomes affected by the presence of another, the appearance of an external audience.

This is not a suggestion that any of you attempt to become a hermit, for the sake of an assumed aim, or that you should sever any particular social relationship. Just become mentally aware of a certain situation so that new understanding may arise.

Begin noting particular conditions that seem to arise in you, when you are alone for some period of time.  Then take note that the mere appearance of another, even your wife, husband, lover or close friend, immediately seems to put the condition to flight.

J.